Redzee: Good or Bad?

[mymissearch]

We've been contacted by Redzee about their program which places you in the top 3 natural search results of Google, Yahoo and others. This is only the case on computers where the Redzee toolbar is installed. I'm wondering if anyone has had any positive or negative experiences with this company that they can divulge.

Thanks!

[BlizzGirl]

We have had quite a few clients contacted by RedZee and their Top3 program. Personally I think that it's somewhat black hat, I cant imagine Google and Yahoo being very happy that their "carefully screened" relevant results are overwritten for results that are paid for.

Also, we have had a client who utilized their PPC services - in the last 6 mos they received over 5,000 clicks and not ONE conversion, while regular Yahoo & Google PPC convert quite nicely. My only reasoning for that is relevancy of traffic.

Overall not impressed - they have not - in the past - hesitated to contact our clients to badmouth their current promotion and marketing company (namely, US!) either.

anyone else?

[mymissearch]

From what I've read thus far, it sounds like a lot of people are puzzled by the extraordinary amount of traffic resulting in no conversions. Seems a bit shady to me. Thanks for your input.

[Marcia]

Caution advised. Here's a good article on it

http://www.searchengineguide.com/dunn/2006/0713_rd1.html

[Mel66]

LOL, they called me yesterday. I could smell the "toolbar spyware download" scam immediately and sent them packing. They must be on a telemarketing spree.

Rand has an interesting thread at SEOmoz, if the one Marcia posted doesn't convince you:

http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=465

Melissa

[Mathese]

Just about 2,000 clicks and no conversions here. If it were google at this point I would be up abut $10,000 but so far nothing from these guys.

The way they work is you buy a set number of clicks and they will eventually run out. Kind of shady in itself if you ask me but I gave it whirl.

I will not be renewing......

[g1smd]

Anything that relies on a toolbar is likely to be lame to useless.

The days of the toolbar spyware scam are numbered.

[JohnMaggio]

Called me yesterday.

The salesman was not ready to try to sell me something. I quickly had him babble mouthed, and frustrated. All I was doing was asking simple questions like "how many unique searches does keyword A get per month?" Very simple questions quickly got me transferred to the "manager".

$500.00 for 10K clicks, money upfront etc... They didnt even talk about the tool bar.

Gave me some speal like a form VP of Overture quit Overture to start RedZee in order to create a more wholesome search engine with no porn etc...

Started spitting out how proud they were of their Alexa rank (I dont think they knew exactly what that meant) so I looked. Google 2, Yahoo 1, MSN 2, AOL 35, Ask 169, Dogpile 956, RedZee 5901. I will admit they are growing quite fast, but with the upfront scam i would figure they would have quite a bit of revenue to work with.

The thing i am most concerned with is the "lots of clicks/no conversions" deal.

Lastly one of the BIG rules is "If they call you" do not buy. It reminds me of all the companies that have called me in the past promising 1st place rankings on google etc...

In the future this may be a viable investment, but I will need to see results first. Clicks mean nothing, conversions mean everything.

[BlizzGirl]

Lastly one of the BIG rules is "If they call you" do not buy. It reminds me of all the companies that have called me in the past promising 1st place rankings on google etc...



This is a biggie John! In my experience, nothing viable ever comes from a cold call. I know we dont cultivate business that way - and I'm not sure I want anyone we do business with to gain clients that way either.

[Mathese]

Lesson learned. We are about 3,000 clicks in and no conversions on our best non-branded keyword. This should be a red flag for everyone else.

These guys are shooting themselves in the foot......

[Chris Boggs]

Started spitting out how proud they were of their Alexa rank (I dont think they knew exactly what that meant) so I looked. Google 2, Yahoo 1, MSN 2, AOL 35, Ask 169, Dogpile 956, RedZee 5901.
Alexa rank is very easy to manipulate.

Lastly one of the BIG rules is "If they call you" do not buy.
Usually I would disagree, but in these days of SEO and or SEM, the only companies doing cold calls are those that don't have business for a reason. So yeah I have to agree with that one too.

[DeepRecon]

RedZee is nothing but bogus. If you have purchased key phrases in their "top 3" ppc program, every single hit that comes from either their search engine or their spybar is a bounce.

I'll say this again because it is very important:

Every single hit that comes from either their search engine or their spybar is a bounce.

Excluding my own testing, in every single case where an IP address has entered my sites from the redzee search engine - either directly from their search engine or from browsers that have the redzee spybar installed, which appends redzee "top 3" ppc results to the top of the Google, MSN or Yahoo organic listings - that IP address goes no further than the landing page. In some cases, the IP bounces out before the entire landing page is requested from the server.

I have tested and confirmed this through exhaustive manual analysis of my raw log files. There is absolutely no doubt that the redzee "top 3" is a scam.

I have severed my relationship with redzee in total disgust.